Not Acting Is Not an Option
Questioner: Sir, I am pursuing MSc in physics. After watching your videos and reading the Bhagavat Gita, I understand that whatever in this world we achieve to please ourselves does not really give us peace. I also find that doing science might be just pleasing myself or my ego. It will not give me peace so should I quit doing my MSc?
Acharya Prashant: Well, if you have read the Bhagavat Gita, Shri Krishn clearly says there that a living being (jeev ) has no option to quit action. Action will continue to happen. Right now, it is one action to be pursuing a particular course and then it would be another action to not pursue that course. Whatsoever comes from the actor is called an action, right? The actor decided at some point, “let me do this course,” that's an action. The actor decides at some point, “let me not do this course;” that too is an action.
Have you gone beyond the actor? And if it is the actor still playing himself out, it's going to be called an action. So, it's not that you can quit acting. If it's the Bhagavat Gita you're referring to, then go to the core message. The core message is: ‘act not for yourself.’ That's not going to bring you contentment or peace. Act for the sake of Krishn and Krishn is just a euphemism. Act for the sake of completion, act for the sake of freedom. That's what Krishn stands for.
Krishn is not a person; Krishn is not some fellow talking to another living being called Arjun. Krishn is not an author. Krishn is a euphemism, a metaphor, a symbol. Krishn stands for Freedom, Peace, Totality in contrast to the feeling of incompleteness we live in, the feeling of incompleteness that guides us. That's the constitution of the actor—a point driven by incompleteness. Now, either the actor can work for himself—and what would it mean for the actor to work for himself? It would mean that the actor is working in a way that continues his incompleteness. The actor works, gets a particular reward and what is the reward? Your existence will be maintained. That's the reward. Is that not the reward? All of us see. What is it that we all want? Security, right? Assurance? We want to be more of ourselves and what are we, fundamentally? Incomplete Beings.
So that's the common mode of operation. The actor says, “I am functioning so that I remain what I am. And I have to function that way because I am not sure of my sustainability given the way I am. Given that I have very little confidence in the way I am, it is imperative upon me to do something to secure my existence.” That's the way we commonly are, that's our common motivation. That's how most people work, that's what most people work for—to try to somehow secure their fundamentally insecure selves. Shri Krishn says, “No. Do not work to secure yourself. Work to reach a point that is not at all what you are. Work for me and I am dimensionally different from you, Arjun. You would either work for yourself or for me. You have to work for me. Working for yourself would mean that you want to remain as you are. Working for me would mean you're working for something beyond yourself. You're working for something that is just not you.”
So, you are pursuing your MSc in physics. See what you are pursuing it for. If you are pursuing it for your own personal pleasures, to get a job of some kind and then earn a secure salary and feel all right and respected, then that is the common mode. But if you can dedicate your knowledge to something beyond yourself, then that's another way of living, another way of living that is possible. Try!
